Dr. Meredith Grey (darkntwisty) wrote in traversecomm, @ 2014-05-05 23:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | izzie stevens (cricket_), meredith grey (darkntwisty) |
Who: Izzie Stevens and Meredith Grey
Where: The E.R.
When: Backdated to the first day of the viral outbreak
What: Realizing there's a lot of people coming down with a nasty flu all of a sudden.
Warning: Vomit. Seriously, there's more than any normal human should have to deal with.
Status: Finished
“All I’m saying,” Izzie said, with her mouth full of tuna, “is that if they’re going to go behind our backs, they can at least have the decency not to panic twenty minutes in.” She shifted around on the gurney now. “I mean, at least when we were trying to save Denny, Bailey had to come in and find us.” Or, rather, she’d come to find them because Burke had alerted her that something was wrong. Whatever. “The point is, at least, don’t panic. Because then the patient panics and then my resident is dragging me out of a surgery because she can’t control her interns.”
It had been a long night, even by whatever they were calling the city now’s standards. Izzie shifted her weight around on the gurney so she could lean against the wall and look at Meredith at the same time. She raised an eyebrow before picking up her tea and taking a drink.
Two people went past them just then, pushing a wheelchair bound teenager. A few seconds later, three residents went past them at a sprint, talking fast, one of them tripping over a trash can as they went around the corner. Izzie stopped reaching into the bag of chips and leaned forward to look as far down the corridor as she could.
No one ever came down this hallway. It was why they’d picked this hallway. Far enough away from everyone to get some privacy, but close enough that if their pagers went off, they were ready. Two more interns went past them, then, pushing a gurney each, banging into each other as they realized they couldn’t both fit down the hallway at the same time.
Izzie looked back at Meredith, then, opening her mouth and closing it as Stiller -- the tiny redheaded girl that simultaneously reminded Izzie of April and Claire stopped next to their gurney. “Mara?” Izzie said, frowning at the intern as she did. She didn’t look good. Pale and sweating. “Mara?”
The girl shook her head and snatched a waste basket from near the gurney, turning away from Izzie to retch into the bucket.
Izzie looked back at Meredith now. “Okay.” Izzie slid off the gurney to help Mara kneel on the floor. “Breathe.”
Izzie looked back at Meredith and then had to tug the intern out of the way so that two more interns could go sprinting down the hallway.
-----------------------
“I know,” Meredith replied, shrugging as she dipped into her yogurt. “But at this point, we should probably just be relieved that they were planning on stealing blood for a patient who refused the transfusion instead of cutting LVADs or doing surgery on themselves.”
It was at about that point that she realized she’d probably said something insensitive and sighed. “Sorry. But you know...if someone did the same thing we did here, then we’d probably be in even more trouble because we’re the attendings. Plus, we really don’t know if the LVAD would be attached to a human or a shapeshifter, which causes more problems because right now, I don’t think Cas can spare any hunters for us. So...we either deny them surgeries or beat them.”
Licking the remaining yogurt off the plastic spoon, Meredith felt like interns doing stupid things was what made Traverse Town feel like Empire City and Empire City’s stupid interns had made it feel like home. She wasn’t too worried about it because they couldn’t talk about it too much when there were stolen organs and fudged clinical trials in their pasts. That and there was still a prom coming up. For Claire and the rest of the adults, which meant a whole lot of drunk transplants and several bigger transplant accidents. Fun for her and Izzie. Maybe not so fun for the people who didn’t heal instantly. She was getting used to seeing Alan on a regular basis.
“I say we beat them,” she said simply.
That thought was instantly pushed out of her head the minute Stiller stopped at their gurney short of breath. Setting her lunch down, she frowned and placed a hand on the girl’s other shoulder. “Mara, look at us,” she said gently. “What happened? Can you tell us anything?”
It’d said on one of the reports that Stiller had had an panic attack in the OR in the past and that was fine - a lot of interns went through bouts of panic, but when the girl looked up, she was definitely paler than Meredith remembered her ever being. And then she shook her head ‘no.’
Turning to Izzie, she shifted to stand and put her stethoscope in her ears. “Let’s get her on her side,” she said simply.
Pressing the device to the girl’s back, she noted some kind of background noise as more sneakers skidded on the linoleum floor, but she just assumed it was more interns, running for surgeries. Even after being awake all night, competition was rampant. “Breathe deeply please,” she said.
Feeling around, she frowned. “There’s a little fluid in the lungs,” she said.
------------
Izzie helped Meredith shift the girl onto her side. Izzie pulled her hair back out of her face so she could see more clearly, moving around to stand in front of Mara. The girl’s eyes had slid closed in the process. She knelt down, shining the pen light into her eyes as she did. “Her skin is hot and clammy,” Izzie said. “Pupil dilation is normal, though -- ow!”
Izzie turned around as something slammed hard into her ankle. Another intern was swaying haphazardly behind her, the wheelchair he was pushing forgotten, Despite the fact that the elderly woman in the chair seemed to be in worse shape than either Mara or the intern. She thought his name was Robert.
She caught onto his arm and moved him down towards the floor, to keep him from falling. He didn’t argue much, despite being about two hundred pounds heavier and a good three feet taller than she was. Izzie did understand the fact that the woman was supposed to be going to neuro for some tests. “Okay,” she said, pulling her stethoscope out and kneeling down in front of the older woman. “Mrs. Markham?” she said. “My name is Doctor Stevens. I know you’re supposed to be going to get some tests right now, but we’re going to have to send you back to your room.” The woman nodded. Izzie wasn’t sure what was wrong with her exactly, but her hearing wasn’t the problem.
Izzie stood up and caught onto another passing intern. “Are you sick?” Izzie asked.
The boy, whose name she had no idea of, shook his head. “No, Doctor Stevens.”
Izzie nodded and gestured to the woman in the wheelchair. “Good. Take Mrs. Markham back to her room, would you.”
The boy looked like he might argue, but stopped then, shoving his chart under his arm and nodding. “Yes, Dr. Stevens.” He turned the wheelchair around and started back in the other direction. Izzie stood still for a moment and then turned back to Robert. “Okay,” she said, frowning at Meredith over the man’s head. “I’m going to have you move into this wheelchair here, okay?”
She grabbed onto the wheelchair and brought it over to her. “Can you stand?”
Robert nodded, but didn’t move. “Do you need help?” He nodded again and Izzie took a deep breath before shifting her weight to get her shoulder under his armpit. She’d helped Sam move with knife wounds and broken arms, she could help this guy stand for a moment. It took several tries of struggling before she managed to get him into the wheelchair.
Izzie frowned now, chewing on her lip. “Okay,” she said. She looked up and down the hallway again. “I think we should move them out of this hallway. We’re in the way and if one more person steps on me, I’m going to throw a punch.”
She hesitated. “ER?”
-------
“ER,” Meredith agreed, moving around the gurney. “Mara, we’ll fill out the paperwork later.”
They would need to know whose service both interns were on and inform their residents at the very least, but until then everything would need to go on hold because two interns falling sick at once was a bad sign whether it was a bug going around or worse, something native to the hospital. They needed to contain it as best they possibly could and then contact a hunter to make sure it was a virus and not some kind of demon-alien crazy virus.
...That part made Meredith frown mentally, but she waited for Izzie to take point with the wheelchair and brought up the back with the girl on the gurney, or she would have. The minute they hit the main corridor, it was backed up with at least one gurney and patient en route to the elevator and maybe six other doctors trying to force their way through a sea of patients. Irritably she pressed forward and glared at the nearest resident.
“Stiles, what the hell is going on?” she asked. “We need this hallway cleared now and where the hell is your…”
“Dr. Rosen was on service for ER hours tonight, but she started complaining of a fever and a headache, so the chief agreed to have her admitted,” Stiles explained. “Everyone else is runoff from outside. It’s like there was an accident out there, but there’s not.”
Sighing, Meredith nodded to Izzie and bit her lower lip before gathering her words. “Okay! Everyone who was paged to be in the Pit tonight, off to the side! Patients, please try to make way and we will call for more chairs if the waiting room is too full to sit down in. Doctors, Stevens and I have at least two sick interns in need of proper examination, so three of you are with me and three of you are with Dr. Stevens. Go with whomever is closest to you and if I catch you trying to trade services, you will officially be taken off the floor. Now move!”
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Izzie returned the nod to Meredith and then had to shift slightly to the side herself so that the people on call could get past her. There were maybe two residents and four interns who divided themselves quietly and carefully between herself and Meredith. Izzie raised an eyebrow at Miller as he slid quietly to stand behind her. He and Carter were proving to be her biggest assets in this hospital. They did what they were told when they were told and reported any weird situations that were going on. She wasn’t sure where Carter was -- Nicole was. Izzie hoped she was okay.
“Alright,” Izzie said, gesturing to Miller and the two interns. “We need to get some blood work and take the usual samples.” She let go of the wheelchair as Miller came forward to take the wheelchair from her. “It looks like a flu symptoms,” she said, as they moved through the hospital now. She caught onto a passing intern’s arm. “If you’re not sick,” she said. “Find another intern and get these people more chairs and into some sort of organization.”
The girl whose arm she’d grabbed -- Izzie thought she’d seen her in Peds’ rotation earlier in the day -- didn’t hesitate, simply nodded with a “Yes, Doctor Stevens” and turned to grab the nearest person and shoved them off towards the storage closets.
Izzie slipped into an open bed as a patient was wheeled out and she stepped back as the two interns helped Robert onto the bed. She turned around and raised an eyebrow at Meredith.
This wasn’t any worse than Seattle Grace. Not yet. Which meant they were about to be attacked by a kraken or something. Krakens were a thing, right?
------
“And we’re gonna need more plastic tubs - if there’s any at all, bring ‘em down here because if it’s flu, you know what to expect!” Meredith called after them.
Wheeling Mara into one of the openings, she checked once more to make sure the girl’s airways weren’t blocked and she thankfully didn’t have to tell Stiles that his fellow intern was going to need an IV with fluids. Fluid bags were already plentiful since their last incident with the pirate ship. Scratching how weird any of that was out of her mind, she simply set to prepping an oxygen tube and placed it around Mara’s head.
“Someone get me an ice pack, please!”
Over her shoulder, she could see Izzie working and see the thoughts churning around. Was it a monster? Did it have tentacles? Could it be killed? Definitely all viable questions, considering that this was potentially a monster flu and they could all be zombies -walkers - running around in a matter of hours. Getting worried about it would only affect the kind of treatment these patients got, so she simply focused on what was at hand.
“Temperature’s a few degrees over 98 - Stiles, I want you to monitor everyone down here and take down a list of symptoms. Go through every chart, question every patient you tend to. You understand me?”
The ER was always full. Always loud. And it could change in a matter of seconds if people weren’t careful, but it was full of worried husbands and wives, screaming children, and old people who didn’t have anyone else. Usually, there was more blood. Car accident injuries or minor cuts from falls. Instead, there was just a lot of head-holding and coughing.
-------
Izzie was trying really hard not to think of all the dozens of supernatural things it could potentially be. Mostly because she didn’t know of anything it could actually be, which meant that her brain kept making things up. But then she remembered that ghosts could carry sickness and the shtriga making kids sick and that sick little girl in the coma and she had to shake her head to focus on Robert’s symptoms. Which was made doubly hard by the sounds of other people coughing. And the worry about monsters.
Izzie stepped back as one of her interns stepped up behind her to give Robert a fluid drip and started taking down the vitals. Izzie was frowning. Which really wasn’t a new thing, but there was something she couldn’t quite get a grip on. “His temperature’s at 99.6,” Izzie said as she looked at the thermometer. She turned to say something to the other intern, as her resident came rushing up with ice packs.
Izzie turned around to watch some of the patients moving around and the interns and residents rushing around trying to organize everyone. Something resembling an orderly line was starting to form, although not quickly enough. These weren’t people who had emergency situations. There were no broken bones. No accident victims. They were just. . .sick. How did you establish priority when you were just sick?
Izzie winced at the sound of someone retching off to the side. She turned around to look in time to see an intern coming back wheeling a mop and bucket towards the mess. Izzie turned back to Robert now. “How long have you been feeling symptomatic?”
Robert frowned at her from under the ice pack that an intern had placed on his head. Izzie managed not to roll her eyes. “Maybe twenty-four hours,” he said. “I was going to ask to go home when. . .well. . .” he gestured towards the influx of people.
Izzie bit down on her lip and looked back at the group of people. “Then how long have these people all been sick? They all came down with it at once. . .” She turned back to look at Meredith now. “If we can prioritize who got sick when, we can sort out where it started and how long it will last.” Because she hadn’t even heard of any kind of sickness going around yesterday.
Izzie grabbed an intern’s arm, she felt bad. She should be learning these kids’ names. “Shelia,” Izzie said, reading the name on the girl’s jacket. “I need you to get a date of when people started to feel sick. Where they were in the two to five days before they started to feel bad. It’ll tell us who’s been sick the longest and who’s in the most dire need.”
And help them sort out if it was something extra creepy or just a normal gross thing.
----------------------
As Meredith set in to getting fluids and oxygen into Mara, she noticed three interns out of the corner of her eye wearing street clothes. “Excuse me!” she said loudly. “Where do you three think you’re going?”
The tall one who reminded her of Mark took a step forward and shrugged. “We just got off a forty-eight hour shift and the chief told us that if we hit overtime again, then we’re…”
“I don’t care,” Meredith interjected firmly. “Go back to the locker room and put on some clean scrubs. We need all hands on deck and if the chief gets on your cases, send him down here!”
They all collectively glared at her, but Meredith couldn’t be bothered. Mara’s airways were starting to relax, but that didn’t help her too much since seeing all of these sick people and having lived through the pirate ship attack would undoubtedly give the girl a worse panic attack this time around. Overhearing what Izzie’s intern was saying, she turned back to her patient and stared at her. Trying to stay critical over being sympathetic was hard, especially considering being sympathetic made her kind of a bitch and she already had that kind of reputation.
“Did your symptoms start roughly twenty four hours ago too?” she asked.
When Mara nodded, she looked up and took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m gonna have you admitted and I’m gonna let Stiles take over here for me. Do you feel like you’re gonna hurl?”
The girl nodded again and Meredith handed her the plastic tub that had been placed at the edge of the bed before coming to Izzie’s side. “Even if we can prioritize, I think we need to let the chief know and ask for more nurses down here. People are still coming in the door and we don’t have that many beds.”
A baby near the entrance cried and she knew that couldn’t be good. “I’m gonna make sure they get these kids out of here,” she said, moving towards the door. “They can take them up to peds and they can look them over. We should take kids and severe cases first anyway - I’ll text Cas and let everyone know about this when I get a chance.”
It wasn’t supernatural. It couldn’t have been, but...it was an imbalance. Which meant that transplants probably still needed to know. It was just a feeling. And when Meredith had a feeling, she was usually right and it made her want her bed. Not that she was gonna tell Izzie that.
----------
Izzie’s head snapped around to see who Meredith standing beside her before having to grab a bucket and hand it to Robert, as he was starting to look a little bit green. She chewed on her lip for a moment as Meredith started creeping towards the door. She raised an eyebrow at this.
She’d nearly forgotten that they had actual bosses again that they needed to answer to. She’d sort of gotten used to having no one to answer to and no one to boss her around. But then again, she’d also gotten used to having a continual paycheck again, so it was a pay off. Not having to rely on Nathan for things made a nice change.
Izzie turned around to look at the kids who were obviously sick and the ones who weren’t obviously sick, but where apparently with parents who were. She took several deep breaths because while she was used to trauma, this wasn’t trauma. This was just people who were sick and needed help and it was slower and gross and a lot more waiting and less barking orders and cutting of things and she’d learned over the years that cutting made her mind go into a sort of stillness that she couldn’t explain. She’d tried a few times. Dean had kept equating it to working on the Impala. Which, in a weird way, she supposed actually made sense. It was all knowing how everything worked and what to do when something went wrong.
This was. . .not anything like either of those things.
“Okay,” Izzie said, turning back to the intern and resident who’d come back up behind her. “you heard her. Get everyone into an orderly fashion. Go through the charts and somebody contact Peds and tell them they’ve got incoming.”
The two stood and stared at her for a moment. Izzie rolled her eyes. “Go. Now.” There was a flurry of movement and bumping into each other before they were heading off in opposite directions. Izzie turned back to Meredith. “We need to tell the Chief that we need anyone on call or not on call in the ER. Before they come in sick themselves.”
She was wondering idly how long it would take before their own people started showing up. It would make sense. If the city was being hit by something, then they were supposed to fix it. And if they were supposed to fix it, then they were likely to be affected by it.
She hated being chosen some days. Whatever that meant.
-------
Chosen was a good word for it. Meredith didn’t actually know that, but she felt it because that was just what happened. The world almost ended and then it was up to the people who didn’t belong there to make sure it didn’t end. She didn’t like it and didn’t even know what to do with it, but they were in a hospital. That was their sanctuary and the one place where they knew what they were doing at all times. So they could do that. Whether the world was ending or not.
“Page him, because no one should be walking out of here right now unless they’re on their way to peds. And then there’s us - the fact that okay, we’ve been exposed and chances are, we have less than seventy-two hours before we’re potentially toxic. We can’t leave. That would be unfair to Nathan!”
Or anyone else. She wasn’t going to try the nuts at the bar anytime soon, but she didn’t want to get the others sick, especially if they could contain it at the hospital and keep the others posted.
On the other side of the ER, she made sure to hit the sliding doors on the way out to the waiting room and stood up on the nearest end table that felt like it could hold her weight. People didn’t seem too happy about it, but they were very tall and therefore, not very likely to listen to her.
“If I could have everyone’s attention please! As of this moment, you have at least a twenty to thirty minute wait between patients - our staff is doing everything they can, but for the time being, we’re going to take children ages three months up to age ten and anyone with a preexisting condition. Pregnancies, upper respiratory complications, and cardio - I need you all to form a line and come with me! Anyone with heart problems, go off to the left side and mothers with children, peds will see you after our interns document the symptoms!”
--------------
Izzie was trying really hard not to think about the fact that they were likely infected too. And considering how many people had possibly been infected before they’d even realized they were. Izzie made a face before pushing her way carefully through the crowd that was milling past her to try to line up like Meredith was telling them to.
She made it over to the phone, punching in the number for the Chief’s pager. She raised an eyebrow at the receptionist -- Laverne? -- who was sitting behind the desk, making a face back at her. “This would be a great time for an all day meeting, right?” Izzie said.
Something was tugging on her pants just then. She looked down to see a little girl, about four or five, tugging on her jacket. “Yes?” Izzie said, kneeling down to where she was eye to eye with the kid. She looked around for a moment to see if she could spot a parent. “Can I help you?”
The girl made a face. She was in pyjamas, with sleep matted hair and eyes, hugging a teddy bear close to her chest. Izzie was pretty sure she’d bought Amber the same one not too long ago. “My tummy hurts,” the little girl said, softly. Izzie looked around again, carefully taking the little girl’s hand as the phone behind her rang.
“Doctor Stevens?”
Izzie turned back around to take the phone that was being shoved into her face. “Stevens,” she said into the phone.
“Stevens, you’d better have a good excuse for pulling me out of this board meeting,” came the response from the other end.
Izzie made a face at the girl who was tugging on her hand. “Sir, we have a situation in the ER. We’ve gotten an influx of people with flu like symptoms and at least two interns are down for the count.” She shifted the phone to take a head count. “In the waiting room alone, there must be at least forty people and the ER and hallways are packed as well.” She bit down on her lip. “If there is anyone who’s not on call, we need them here. Doctor Grey and I are organizing as best we can, but we’re going to need everyone we can get.”
There was silence for a long moment. “I’ll be right down,” came the response before the line went dead. Izzie hung the phone up and turned around to see a frazzled looking red-headed woman rushing up. “Miley.” The woman tugged the little girl’s hand from Izzie’s and Izzie opened her mouth to interfere when the little girl wrapped her arms around the woman’s shoulders and let herself be picked up. “Is this your mom?” Izzie said, carefully. Obviously it was, but as soon as she didn’t ask, it would turn out that wasn’t her mother.
The little girl nodded her head, slowly and Izzie nodded her head towards the interns helping with Peds. “If you talk to those girls over there, they’ll get you set up.” The woman walked off with the little girl.
“You’re welcome!” Izzie muttered just loud enough to be heard by the secretary. Izzie rolled her eyes and then moved over to where her interns were taking vitals and information from the cardiac patients. She smiled gently at the young man sitting in front of. . .was her name Lydia?
“Hi,” Izzie said, softly. “I’m Doctor Stevens.”
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The problem with kids was that they inevitably got into everything. Mothers let them run around everywhere, which okay, Meredith figured she had probably been that kid since Ellis had never looked after her like that, but the minute she saw one of the little boys trying to touch the defibrillater in the corner, she suddenly had a moment of ‘What if that were Zola?’
Who she was probably never going to see again, so she couldn’t think like that. “Sweetheart, don’t touch that!” she said loudly, pointing at the boy.
He backed off fast, but it left Meredith barking. She didn’t like her barking self, but it was good to know that her mom voice was still in place. The intern who had scooped up the boy was staring at her with wide brown eyes, only for the mother to come and take him out of the doctor’s arms irritably. “Williams, I need you on child duty! Parents, please, we’re in a hospital and this is no place to play. Everyone whose children are already running a fever or complaining of nausea can please follow me.”
People were going to argue and be angry. She could already hear them, but they would have to wait. Women and children first was a stupid policy. It encouraged division between the sexes, but at the moment, there were a lot of grumpy, wailing kids, and in order for the doctors to work, they needed some semblance of quiet.
Leading everyone over to the back, she started directing people towards beds and the few doctors and nurses who could take symptoms and temperatures.
“Izzie, how are we doing on notifying the chief?” she asked, ducking under an IV stand as it rolled past.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and started a text out to the Miltons - they could let everyone else know. Until then, they needed to get the ER under control and they needed to take as many as they could before they sealed off the building.
----------------------------
Izzie looked up from where she was listening to the man in front of hers’ heart. “He’s on his way down,” Izzie said. She held up a hand. “He hung up before I could say anything else.” She didn’t know how long it would take him to get down there, or how long it would take everyone else to get there, so for all she knew, they could only do what they needed to do. For as long as possible, because she was absolutely positive that before long, they were going to be sick themselves and she was already dreading that.
Izzie made a note on the man’s chart and handed it to the intern who was standing and waiting for her to finish. At that moment, the doors came open and three residents and four nurses came in. They were still pulling back hair and buttoning lab coats. Which meant, they’d likely been down the road, either at home, out and about somewhere, or if the looks on a couple of their faces were any indication, at Winterfell.
Izzie stood up, raising an eyebrow at Meredith as she did. “Glad to see they’re taking this seriously.”
She winced as the man she’d just checked on vomited onto her shoes. She counted to three as two of the new interns rushed up to help her. “Get him into a chair. And find him a bucket or something.”
Izzie stepped carefully around the puddle on the floor as the intern with the mop and bucket came rushing up to mop up the mess. There wasn’t much they could do about her pants or shoes, though. Izzie let out a breath now and shoved her hands down into her pockets and tried to remember if she still had clean scrubs in her locker when another intern rushed up, out of breath, trying to tell her something and promptly slipped on the mess on the floor.
Oh, for. . .
Izzie caught onto the man’s arm, helping him stand up. “Honestly,” she said. “You all handled ghost pirates, and now you’re panicking over the flu?”
The intern winced as she tugged on his arm. “Ma’am, with all due respect, the ghost pirates weren’t something I could lose my job over if I screwed up.”
Izzie let go of him then. “So, don’t screw up,” she said. “What were you wanting to tell me?”
He seemed to remember he’d come in there for a reason, then. Izzie made a face as her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. “One of the ambulance drivers passed out as he was parking the ambulance,” he said. His eyes went wide at the look on her face. “I don’t know who all’s injured, but he did slam into the concrete divide.”
“Is he getting help?” Izzie asked, starting to turn and grab a passing intern.
“I came back to get more people,” he said.
Izzie grabbed the two interns who were rushing past her. “What are you two doing?”
“We’re finding more beds,” the smaller of the two girls said.
Izzie shook her head. “Not anymore. Go with --” she looked down at the intern in front of hers badge -- “Fuller and help with the people in the ambulance.” The interns rushed off and Izzie stood for a moment, trying to remember what she’d been about to do.
She gestured to the crowd of people who were standing with pre-existing issues to follow her towards a rapidly filling spot.
She turned back to look at Meredith. “Did you get ahold of the Miltons?” she asked.
--------------
Meredith rolled her eyes and shoved her phone back in her pocket just as Izzie asked the question. She couldn’t really tell if it were before or after the vomit, but there was something obvious about adult vomit that made it a lot scarier. Not that she’d never had anyone do that to her, but when babies did it, it was still almost cute. “Not yet,” she said. “I have Cas - sort of, but he’s currently stalking a werewolf and hiding out because it’s got his scent. Anna’s probably giving Amber a bath, so we have to wait.”
Wrinkling her nose, she gestured for Izzie to go over to the elevator. “Go,” she said. “I can handle the ambulance problem until you get back and if there aren’t any clean scrubs in your locker, then you can use mine if they fit. I have a pair that’s too big in there anyway.”
Which probably wasn’t much of a comfort, but even tiny pants were better than vomit pants.
As people were being wheeled in, Fuller very nearly ran her over with the gurney. Sighing, she looked at Izzie and blinked. “Give me reasons why we aren’t dooming them to scut for the next six weeks when we aren’t overflowing with six patients.”
Gesturing to the nearest nurse, she took hold of the woman’s arm just to make sure she was listening. “Dr. Stevens needs to change and we have at least three drunk interns - get us as many banana bags as you can carry, put them on a cart, and bring them down here. I have a feeling we’re gonna need more as the night rolls on.”
Turning back to Izzie, she sighed. “Go,” she repeated. “I can call Nathan too if you want.”
---------------
Izzie made a face, although, some of it was from the smell. “I guess werewolf would trump flu,” she said, slowly. But at least if the Miltons knew about what was going on, then everyone else would know about it shortly and that was at least their people looked after and taken care of.
Although, if her theory was correct and they weren’t being controlled by Cthulu any longer, then she might need to stop thinking of the transplants as ‘their people’ and think of everyone as their people. Which she would totally do. Once she wasn’t covered in vomit.
“I’ll take tiny pants over vomit pants,” Izzie agreed, shifting her weight to dodge what she suspected was another drunk intern. She thought for a moment. “We’re trying to teach them to handle a crisis,” Izzie said. “If they’re scared of us, they’ll mess up and then won’t be able to handle a crisis.” She bit down on her lip. “They were okay with ghost pirates, so they should be okay with flu once the shock wears off.” She grinned now. “And if we put them on scut, then we’re going to have to find new interns and we’ve already gotten these ones broken in.”
She made a tiny nod of her head, clutching her phone in her hand as she did. “I’ll call him,” she said. “It’ll be faster, because you know he’s just going to turn around and ask me all the same things you explained.” Izzie wrinkled her nose. “And I’d like to see how Claire is faring anyway. She’s in school, ground zero for most of this.”
After another pause, the elevator door came open. “I’ll be as fast as I can,” she promised, hitting the button to take her down to the floor with the locker room.
She’d have to be. It was going to be a very long night.